National Foundation Day

  Hello friends and fam! Yesterday was the National Foundation Day of Korea, which celebrates the creation of ancient Korea in 2333 BC. We had the day off of school and took a very random trip!
  Last week, Mariem had found an event on Facebook that promoted a free day-trip for foreigners around Korea on this holiday. A lot of our mutual friends were planning on attending the event (college students are naturally attracted to the word "free"), so without really reading the details, we signed ourselves up. We took the train to Dongdaemon at 6:30am, found some spots on a lovely coach bus and were on our way by 7am!
  Our first stop on the trip was Naesosa Temple, about 2 hours south of Seoul. We enjoyed a decent lunch beforehand and explored the traditional temples, with golden buddhas and other such decor inside. Some Koreans prayed inside of here. I personally was fascinated by this 1,000 year-old tree. Mariem filmed me attempting to narrate this phenomenon, when we were interrupted by father and his two children. He was teaching his children English and wanted them to practice with us (the children were clearly quite embarrassed). I am attaching the video link below (its 2 min) if you'd like to watch!
  Our next stop was about 20 min away and was a "Gomso Salted Sea Food Festival." Maybe it was the rain, but the festival was quite empty (though there were many tents set up). We tried some strange pizza, some spicy squid tentacles (it wasn't alive for the record), and some pancake-things. Some of the international students with us lined up at a table and participated in a kimchi-making activity. I'm assuming it was being used for promotional purposes because 1) it was being filmed and 2) it reminded me so much of a game show. The host asked the participants where they were from then randomly BLASTED some loud music (some of it very inappropriate in English, I'm not sure they realized...)  and forced them to dance in their chefs hats for an uncomfortably long period of time. It was quite comical!
  We left the seafood fest and drove a whopping 3 hours to the very southern coast of Korea (I had no idea we were going this far) all to spend a mere hour at an "international medical expo." Yeah, we were very confused. Especially because we were in the most gorgeous, mountainous and seaside area where we could've hiked or took a swim in the beach. Nonetheless, we made the most of it and I bought some dipndots for about $3 (pretty cheap compared to the $7 I'd pay in the US). We toured some of the medical tents, which looked cool, but we couldn't understand any of it for it was all in Korean. Even if we could understand, we only spent an hour there so we were very rushed.
  Not a bad trip for it being free and all! We got some good laughs and memories out of it. In other news, tomorrow I have my first test in Korean class (I've been studying so I expect I'll do decent) and some upcoming presentations in other classes to prepare for (very low-pressure, I'm not concerned). Thanks for reading, enjoy the week ahead!

The bus!

Inside of the temple. 

Old Tree/Korean Family

^^(Click link to view video. This will work best on your computer.)

Strange Kimchi-Making activity

^^(Clink link to view video. Will also work best on a computer.)

A view of the sea, not far from the seafood festival.